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Black History Month at BGS

Our Whole School assembly on Thursday 3 October coincided with our first cultural dress day of the year. The assembly was introduced by Deputy Head Rebeca Davies and reflected on the importance of celebrating the diversity of our school community, and the start of Black History Month, which this year has the theme of reclaiming narratives – something that the BGS History department have been working on for several years. In the assembly, Head of History and Politics Charlie Pearson shared why this is important for us to do, and four pupils joined him to share the topics whose study has resonated with them. You can watch the assembly or, if you prefer, read the transcript, below.


Ms Davies

At BGS our school aims to nurture, challenge and celebrate each individual; to develop an excitement for learning which goes beyond school; to promote physical and mental wellbeing, and the development of good character; to make a BGS education available to all those who might benefit from it; and, relevant to today’s assembly and to this month in particular to be a diverse and representative community, and one which serves Bristol and beyond.

Today we have our first cultural dress day of the year - a chance for staff and pupils to come into school in traditional or cultural dress and to recognise the marvellous diversity of our community. It is great to see so many of you embracing it, and there will be further days in the year to embrace it again. At BGS we are a community of 35 nationalities with 35 languages being spoken in your homes. In the senior school 27% of our pupils identify as BME - black or minoritised ethnic background; very close to the 28% BME population of Bristol. In the Infant and Junior schools that figure stands at 34%. Looking beyond BGS at Bristol at large, in the most recent data available from 2023, there are over 45 religions practised, 185 countries of birth, 287 different ethnic groups and 90 main languages in our city.

Within that context, Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate that diversity and explicitly challenge biases that have existed in the English curriculum; biases which here at BGS we are proud to have been addressing for a number of years. The theme of Black History month this year is to reclaim narratives. Head of History and Politics, Mr Pearson, with three History students and one of our Politics students, will now reflect on the meaning of Black History month for us at BGS and the topics that have resonated with them.

Mr Pearson
It was raised last year by a visiting Massey lecturer called Lawrence Hoo, activist, poet and founder of the movement CARGO or ‘Charting African Resilience Generating Opportunities’. At the end of Hoo’s lecture he answered a question put to him regarding what he thought of ‘Black History Month’ (it was October at the time). ‘Can’t stand it’ he said. There is no ‘Black History’. History featuring those who are not white is ‘history’ the same as history concerning those who are white. Calling it ‘Black History’ others it, makes it somehow less valid. ‘Black History Month’ is even worse as it implies a tokenistic need to appease the history gods by having a 1/12 of the year where this special category of history can make an appearance. I’d agree with Lawrence Hoo’s line of argument if I shared his optimism that history curricula across the land are already diversifying with the effect that we now have a citizenry universally attuned to the value of adding previously marginalised voices to the traditional Battle of Hastings-Henry VIII-Two World Wars and One World Cup canon long thought to furnish us with the essentials of the nation’s story.

It is because of the second, less sensible, objection to Black History Month that I do not yet share Lawrence Hoo’s optimism that this point has been reached. I’m sure that you, like me have been following the big election story of our time – the Tory leadership contest. Let me quote one of the front runners amongst the last four standing in this contest, one Kemi Badenoch – ‘We do not want to see teachers teaching their white pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt…any school that teaches these elements of critical race theory as uncontested fact is breaking the law’.

Now I’ve taught in five very different schools, two state, three private, two girls, two boys and one mixed. I am yet to meet a single teacher who teaches any theory, including critical race theory (the idea that, based on largely historically embedded assumptions, whiteness, like being male, middle class or heterosexual, acts as a form of privilege) as ‘uncontested fact’, compelling a theory as most of us find it. The clue is in the name – ‘critical race theory’. This does not, however, stop any attempt to redress such imbalance, like encouraging the enrichment of the historical narrative through initiatives such as Black History Month, being used as a political football. Black History Month is a zero-sum game. If you’re teaching Black History like the revolts of the Maroons against the British Empire in Jamaica, you’re squeezing out valuable time for the teaching of the heroic exploits of the RAF pilots of the Battle of Britain. Equally, how can you expect to learn about the exploits of Florence Nightingale if you’ve frittered your time away on Mary Seacole? If they’ve torn down a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston and thrown it into Bristol Harbour, it is imperative to join Tommy Robinson and the EDL lads on a pilgrimage to London to protect the statue of Churchill and the Cenotaph because it’s Britain’s history they’re railing against, not the injustices of slavery!

It’s this confected patriotic panic that politicians fuelling social division via the medium of what they call ‘culture wars’ that convinces me of the continued need, for now at least, of Black History Month. But let me reassure Lawrence Hoo that here at BGS we go significantly beyond simply teaching Black History during the month of October. Thanks in large part to the authorship and encouragement of our very own Ms Lobo, and the willingness of my other departmental colleagues to follow her lead, we have taken big strides in decolonising our curriculum. Decolonising our curriculum has not involved removing the traditional stories of the Norman Conquest, the Industrial Revolution or the First World War but in enriching the wider story they are part of by weaving the narratives of those previously unrepresented alongside them into our history teaching.

One project that Ms Lobo and her co-authors on the Connected Worlds publication team have worked on, and that we will be for the first time this year incorporating in our Year 9 teaching, is a reinterpretation of the Scramble for Africa by Kenyan author and academic Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. For most of you who have studied the Scramble for Africa of the Late 19th Century it will have been in the context of explaining the causes of the First World War. The great European powers, all desperate to establish or maintain their dominance as leading imperialists competed for the previously un-colonised continent of Africa. The tensions caused by this “scramble” later, of course, led the assassination of an Austrian archduke to drag all these powers into a war that engulfed the earth and changed civilisation fundamentally forevermore. In his 1986 work Decolonising the Mind Ngugi pointed to the fact that the far more immediate, and generally neglected consequence of this hurried process of colonisation was aggressive wiping out of African cultures and languages. We have an obligation, he argued, in our historical research, to attempt to rediscover these cultures and languages and to seek to redress the injustice of this cultural sabotage by creating more literature and art in these languages and cultural styles.

You have, however, heard enough from me so I have brought along Alex, Sumedha, Bea and Mary, some of our History, and in Mary’s case, Politics students to talk about a few of their experiences following our decolonised curriculum.

Alex (Y9) Memories of Medieval Mali
“In Year 7 we study medieval Mali (East Africa) during the reign of Mansa Musa (1312-37). In Western terms this is just before the beginning of the Hundred Years War between England and France. We do not have to rely on the work of historians and archaeologists today for knowledge of Mansa Musa – he was widely known and admired during his own time in sources across the Western world reaching as far as England. He is thought to have been the richest man in the world at the time, with modern estimates suggesting he was worth $400 billion in today’s money. It is thought that gold from the mines of Mali was to be found in the crowns of nearly all the major European monarchs at the time.

Musa’s fame was spread largely as a result of an incredible pilgrimage he undertook in 1323 from Niani in West Africa crossing the entire Sahara Desert and then all the way to Mecca, presenting gifts of gold to all the settlements he encountered along the way. A committed Muslim, Musa was nevertheless famous for the religious tolerance he practised keeping the diverse peoples of his empire happy and united. Mali traded with civilisations as far flung as Western Europe, Arabia and China. It was also known as a centre of great learning and enlightenment. One of if its great cities, Timbuktu, boasted a university of 25,000 scholars with nearly a million books educating those who would become pioneers in architecture, astronomy, medicine and engineering.

Traditional Western narratives have viewed medieval Africa simply as the hapless eventual victim of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The study of Mansa Musa’s Mali helps to challenge this misunderstanding and enrich our understanding of interaction between Africa and the wider world going back significantly beyond this.”

Sumedha (Y11) The Mughals (Year 8) and Viet Minh (Year 11)
“In Year 8 we study the Mughal Empire and in Year 11 we study the struggle of the Vietnamese people for self-determination from imperial dominance after the Second World War covered. A key figure in the History of the Mughal Empire was Malik Ambar. He was born in Ethiopia as Wako Chapu and sold by his parents to various owners. He eventually converted to Islam and came to India with one such master who was connected to the Ahmednagar Sultanate. After the master’s death he was freed and became a powerful warrior who then ascended the throne of the Sultanate making him the Peshwa of Ahmednagar; this was a title he held for 16 years.

Another thing he was known for was introducing guerilla tactics to the region which he used against the Mughals successfully on many occasions. Guerrilla warfare was unknown in the region and the Mughals were nearly unbeatable at set piece battle. This meant that he led his army against the Mughals to many impressive victories using his novel tactics.

340 years later, the Vietminh used guerrilla warfare against the oppressive French forces. The Vietminh, were freedom fighters in Vietnam during and after World War 2. They were led by Ho Chi Minh and General Giáp who was an expert in guerrilla warfare. He understood that set piece battle would be pointless against the French and trained the Vietminh troops out smart the French. For example, they moved under the cover of heavy rainstorms that the French weren’t used to, to ensure that their tracks were covered. They fought an inspiring battle against their oppressors over 8 years to be able to gain their independence.

On the other side of the battle, the French recruited troops from across their empire, mainly North African countries, alongside some of their own forces. Countries such as Senegal, and others in northern Africa, saw nearly 300,000 of their men fighting in the French army by the end of the war.

Several years later, the Vietcong, fought the Americans in South Vietnam. Again, due to a lack of troops the Americans changed their drafting rules to be able to conscript more men. Muhammad Ali was one such individual. He declined the drafting call on religious grounds. He then spoke out further against the hypocrisy faced by the Black people in America as well as condemning the continuation of racist regimes such as Vietnam. He publicly questioned why he should fight against the brown people in Vietnam while Black people were treated “like dogs” in America. He went on to add that he didn’t want to murder and fight in this war to continue the reign of the “white slave masters”. He was denied exemption and charged with a prison sentence and suspension from boxing which was fortunately dropped. Even today, people remember Muhammad Ali as an incredible activist, in this case for speaking out for Vietnam and the Vietnamese People who fought against oppression for nearly 35 years before being fully independent."

Bea (L6) The Inkas
"
If you are fortunate enough to study the Early Modern History A-level you will encounter the Inkas of South America. In the 15th and 16th centuries. While the Yorkists and Lancastrians struggled for control of England, and rushed in to bring order and civility to the kingdom, the Inka civilisation was spreading its authority across modern day Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. The Spaniards who encountered the Inka when they arrived in the 1530s saw the Inka through an imperial lens, imposing Western ideas and viewing the Sapa Inka as a tyrant who kept his 10 million in check through force, superstition and fear. In reality study of the Inkas reveals a far more tolerant and sophisticated relationship between the Inkas and the diverse peoples they ruled. They ruled without any form of currency relying instead on a system of Mit’a or labour on the empire’s vast agricultural and infrastructure projects. The Inka had built over 15,000 miles of roads brilliantly connecting their entire empire. Lined with 2,000 storehouses or tampus which used a sophisticated system of freeze drying to preserve food to sustain for military delegations travelling the length of the empire, and at times as a reserve supply of food in times of famine. They were able to transport goods and messages along these roads at incredible speeds using a system of runners stationed approximate 7km apart. Even enabling fresh fish to be transported from the Pacific Coast to Cuzco, hundreds of kilometres inland and at over 3,000 metres above sea level long before it had time to spoil. Irrigation channels lining these roads ingeniously served to make the land fertile in the otherwise hostile climate of the South American highlands. Moreover , relationship between the Inka and the various societies they ruled was far more reciprocal and their infrastructure far more advanced than the conquering Spaniards of the 1530s could comprehend. Yet one thing the Inka could not understand about the Europeans was their seemingly insatiable lust for gold. Although they characterised gold as tears from the Sun God Inti, the Inka recognised it as having little practical or intrinsic value and encouraged the Spaniards’ belief in a mythical El Dorado, or City of Gold, that lay just beyond the horizon of the Inkas sphere of influence. Therefore , while the conquering Spaniards liked to claim they were bringing civilisation to a credulous and backward people, this was very likely not have the case. By manipulating histories and placing the Inka as barbaric the Spanish were attempting to justify their conquest. Unfortunately this displays another, all too frequent, moment in history that was rewritten to serve and appeal to a Western and imperialist worldview."

Mary (U6) Black History Month and Politics Today
"
From a political perspective, the need to decolonise our History curriculum to promote greater understanding of how today’s multicultural and multi-ethnic societies have emerged from a complex interaction between civilisations, is more important than ever. As we speak the USA is very possibly set to re-elect a president who has openly accepted the endorsement of white supremacists, told several US congresswomen to go back to the countries they came from and most recently sought to spread division by claiming in an interview of the National Association of Black Journalists that immigrants from Central and South America coming into the USA have been taking, in his words, ‘black jobs’. Austria’s parliamentary elections have just resulted in the largest individual number of seats being won by the Far-Right Freedom Party. Similar results in favour of the far right AfD in German state elections and the rise to prominence of avowedly anti-immigrant leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban (a man Trump cited as a supporter in the recent televised debate with Kamala Harris) suggest a serious need for our society to rediscover a more diverse and cohesive outlook.

Although it is not the only factor a traditional historical canon which simply charts the rise of European powers via industrialisation, colonialisation and the glorious Anglo-American struggle against tyranny and Nazism in the world wars can only leave people vulnerable to accepting the oversimplified, intolerant solutions of populist politicians. Diversifying our history teaching can create a more nuanced and accepting politics of today."